1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a life management circuit, more particularly to a life management circuit for managing the usage rates of a plurality of electronic components, an electronic system incorporating the same, and a machine-implemented method for managing the usage rates of a plurality of electronic components.
2. Description of the Related Art
As technology advances, light emitting diodes (LEDs) are more widely used in electronic equipments, such as in light indicators, illuminating devices, and as sources of backlighting in display screens.
Current illuminating devices generally utilize a light emitting module composed of multiple light emitting diodes to serve as the light source, and are normally enabled to operate under multiple modes (or provide multi-stage switching) such that the luminance intensity and the number of light emitting diodes lit up under each mode/stage are different to satisfy different needs. For instance, a night lamp mode might be used for reading at night, and a full bright mode might be used for other general purposes. However, some light emitting diodes in the same light emitting module might always be lit regardless of the mode of operation, such that these light emitting diodes have shorter lives, while the other light emitting diodes that are only lit in specific mode (s) have longer lives. Whenever a light emitting diode fails, the illuminating ability of the light emitting module as a whole is affected, and replacement of the whole light emitting module is generally required, even if other light emitting diodes are still functioning. This results in higher costs and waste of resources.
Similar issues are also encountered in other electrical or electronic equipments that use multiple electronic components or devices, such as air conditioner, motor, etc.